Cameron’s quiet today: "Tory leader David Cameron was unusually coy about his views of Gordon Brown as he visited a green waste recycling plant in his constituency."

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PA is reporting a good Newsnight poll:

"Prime Minister-in-waiting Gordon Brown is seen as more arrogant and less in touch with voters then Tony Blair and Conservative leader David Cameron, according to a Newsnight poll. The Chancellor is expected to become the next premier, but appears to have an image problem with some of the electorate, the poll commissioned by the BBC current affairs programme suggests."

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George Osborne’s official statement on the launch:

"Was that it? After ten years of waiting, all Gordon Brown has given us is re-heated slogans and a promise to listen – when all the evidence shows he’s incapable of acknowledging his mistakes. The last ten years were the Blair/Brown years, so he cannot be the change Britain needs. It’s same old Labour, same old spin. That has become crystal clear today."

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Peter Franklin has an interesting take on the speech, and urges Cameron to also chase the "striver vote":

"I’ve heard this somewhere before, I kept thinking. On one level this was hardly surprising. The speech was composed of bog standard political platitudes that could have come from any mainstream British politician. However, there was something about the precise choice and framing of the platitudes that was distinctive, and yet far from original. And then it came to me, another speech, delivered four years ago by none other than Iain Duncan Smith."

"He’s also right to be very cautious about signing up to any new treaty. Many other EU leaders have failed to listen to the no votes in France and Holland, and they now plan to push ahead regardless and transfer significant new powers to the EU. Brown should certainly go to the key EU summit on 22 June to make sure Tony Blair doesn’t lock him into something which the voters don’t want."

"Following Tony Blair’s announcement to leave office by 27 June 2007, but noting his promised attendance at a major European Council Summit on 21-22 June, The European Foundation demands that Gordon Brown must pressure Blair not to commit to the Constitutional Treaty before his departure or leave the UK position open to further EU obligations."

The room was crammed with journalists and Brownites and chaired by Jack Straw. The event didn’t go smoothly – one of the autocue screens blocked Brown’s face from the camera for his whole speech. He twice muttered to Straw that he could take every question rather than just a few and was being extra nice to the journalists, it all seemed very false.

To make it worse, Tony Blair competed for attention on the BBC’s split screen by speaking at the simultaneous launch of a Sir Bobby Moore statue at Wembley.

Before the speech George Osborne articulated on BBC News 24 what is probably the strongest line of attack on Brown:

"When you look at the things people are really fed up with, like the collapse of the pension system, like the failure to get money to the frontline of the health service, Gordon Brown is more responsible for that than any other politician including Tony Blair."

This post will be updated with news and commentary throughout the afternoon.